What it Takes
How did the Witwatersrand Medical School Class of 1933 fair during their studies and after graduation?
How did the Witwatersrand Medical School Class of 1933 fair during their studies and after graduation? Many Jewish students excelled but the top two students were Pieter Boshoff, an Afrikaner, and Margaret Orford, an English prodigy. They scored first class passes in every subject, every year. They had already previously completed science degrees but that did not account for their outstanding superiority. However, their subsequent careers were a surprise.
Boshoff was a colourless, enigmatic personality who became a backroom bacteriologist and was not heard of again!
Margaret Orford however hit the headlines at times. She was failed in her major surgery viva voce by the tempestuous surgical chief, J.J.Levin, who claimed, 'no way was he going to let her loose on the general public, whatever her academic achievements.' The three clinical professors (of Medicine, Surgery and Gynaecology/Obstetrics) held a special meeting with J.J. and finally passed her with a third class in Surgery.
In due course, Margaret was convicted of criminal malpractice in a complicated obstetric case and was struck off the Medical Roll! The case against her was brought by the Afrikaans District Surgeon who had performed the post mortem and dramatically highlighted her misjudgment, destructive intervention and panic. Her lawyer alleged vicious ethnic bias, vindictive hyperbole and extenuating circumstances. After a respectable time interval her erstwhile professorial mentors had the case reopened and eulogised her achievements. She was reinstated but landed in a later malpractice suit, though this time was given the benefit of the doubt.
The major achievers had modest student records. As the years passed it became evident that self-discipline and emotional stability, ambition matched to talent, tenacity, clear and consistent goals and sound judgement determined success. Personality, personal and community linkages and being in the right place at the right time also counted.
The most successful member of the class of 1933 was 'Long' Snyman. He was an average student. He qualified as a physician in occupied Holland, returned after the war to become Professor of Medicine at Pretoria University, President of the prestigious National Health Advisory Council, the South African Medical & Dental Council and the South African Medical Association; personal physician to Prime Minister Hendrick Verwoord and his advisor on health matters; he headed commissions of enquiry into medical education and health policy, as well as a host of allied functions and appointments. He collected the honours and became the doyen of the profession.
Big, hearty Jackie Lawrence, who took eight or nine years to qualify, became a professorial blue-eyed boy, the best houseman they ever had, they declared, to go on to be the number one general practitioner in Pretoria. These were not exceptions to the rule.
The historical novel Whitewashed Jacarandas and its sequel Full of Possibilities are both available on Amazon as paperbacks and eBooks.
These books are inspired by Diana's family's experiences in small town Southern Rhodesia after WWII.
Dr. Sunny Rubenstein and his Gentile wife, Mavourneen, along with various town characters lay bare the racial arrogance of the times, paternalistic idealism, Zionist fervor and anti-Semitism, the proper place of a wife, modernization versus hard-won ways of doing things, and treatment of endemic disease versus investment in public health. It's a roller coaster read.
Excerpt from Dr. Morris Isaac Hirsch's Unpublished Memoirs" Hirsch Archives.
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Photo <https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/x346ft40j>.